You’ve got to hand it to Wendi. Putting up with Rupert can’t be easy. I have a hard time just watching Murdoch on TV. His jowls, those wrinkles and that evil Donald Duck as Mr. Scrooge impersonation. Poor Wendi has to see him naked!

Of course, I use the word “poor” loosely. Given that Rupert resembles a Shar Pei, I guess it’s only fitting that Wendi love him. Like Wendi, those dogs come from China. But what exactly does Wendi love about Scrooge McDuck?

It’s easy to call Wendi a gold digger, a trollop, a tramp. I mean, she paid back the couple that first sponsored her visa to America by breaking up their marriage and then marrying the husband. Later, when she saw that there were other, bigger, wealthier fish in the sea, she put herself back on the market like a good Capitalist and traded up. She’s no dummy.

I remember reading in Vanity Fair a while back about Wendi getting Rupert to include her children with him as heirs to the News Corp fortune. This after Rupert agreed with his ex-wife that in lieu of an ugly and costly divorce, he just split the empire between the three children that they had together and the other child from a previous marriage. Rupert has been married three times. What a dog! I mean Shar Pei.

Wendi is a Chinese immigrant with a green card and a Birkin. Rupert is a naturalized American citizen from Australia with an empire and an attitude. Theirs was a love story that could only happen in America. One where merciless, immoral media moguls marry social-climbing home wreckers.

Still, it can’t be easy for Wendi. I imagine Rupert’s bald head tastes like a peanut. Can you imagine what the rest of him must taste like? Wendi just pretends she’s sucking on a log roll, one that will soon die and leave her with two young heirs, four bumbling adult step-children and one aging ex-wife.

Thank God we get The Joy Behar Show in Hong Kong. Thank God the show is aired at a time I’m free to watch. And thank God, he cured Ted Haggard of his homosexuality. The thought of Haggard grimacing with his big hippo mouth as he’s plowed from behind is enough to make even me turn straight.

I’m glad Joy has people like the Haggards on her show. It’s too easy and unfair to dismiss people like them as stupid, pathetic and hypocritical. I actually found myself liking Gayle Haggard when she first appeared on Joy’s show a couple of weeks ago.

Do I agree that her husband was cured of his homosexuality? Of course not. Do I think she’s dilusional? You bet. Do I think she’s pathetic? Surprisingly no. Gayle is a sympathetic character and not so obviously brain-dead like Sarah Palin. She’s a woman in love with her gay husband. That’s not pathetic. That’s sad.

For his part, Ted Haggard did the best he could under the circumstances. He must have known that Joy didn’t give two Elisabitch Hasselsnatches about his advice to Tiger Woods. She was more interested in discussing his own transgressions. But he, like his wife, is dilusional.

I honestly think the two of them really believe what they say: that you can be cured of homosexuality, that it’s a product of sexual molestation as a child, that you can choose to align your sexual orientation with your spiritual values. Now, THAT, that’s just stupid.

Tiger Woods could, would and did. Not once, not twice, but several times and with numerous ladies.

Now, I’m not a Tiger Woods fan for the same reason I’m not an Andy Roddick fan. Someone that intense and serious just has to be a prick in real life. And from what I’ve heard and read, Tiger is an enormous penis. Hard to talk to, difficult to read, tough to get to, he’s an intensely private man. Unless, that is, you’re a classic bimbo.

Rachel Uchitel and the other mistresses are classic bimbos in the Hollywood sense. They’re tall, long-haired, collagen-injected walking sticks. They look fake, are fake and act fake.

Last week, my Spanish conversation teacher asked me if I thought the rumors about Tiger Woods were true. I said yes. People tend to have a type. Michael Jackson preferred Latino boys, Jennifer Aniston prefers emotionally unavailable men and Tiger Woods likes “blond” bimbos. I guess that’s OK because Tiger isn’t really “black.” Remember that awful answer he gave Oprah when she asked him how he thought of himself? You ask me that question and I’ll tell you, “Brown, pink and green, Baby!”

But I digress.

This morning after my Spanish lesson, my teacher again brought up the subject of Tiger Woods. I said, “You see! I told you he did it.”

She replied that she thought Tiger might have a sickness. “He’s married, jew no, to hees wife, and zey have two daughters. Ten women in two jeers. Dats like some sickness, no?”

I smiled, sipped my cappuccino and recalled my college years. If Tiger had a sickness, then I needed to be put down back then.

Tiger is just another asshole sports god who likes to get laid. Where’s the news in that?

My Japanese boy toy neatly dispatched by my personal butler, Tanaka, I’m on a taxi bound for Narita. Memories of the magnificent view from my hotel suite suddenly replaced by the soundless crush of midday Ginza traffic, I instruct the driver to deposit me at Tokyo Station. Asprey overnight bag in hand, I cut a determined path towards the front of the line reserving a window seat on the green car of the Tokyo Narita Express.

Concrete and neon give way to Japanese pine and rice paddies. Recollections of my boy toy gagging on my ample manhood are replaced by the greeting of a uniformed hostess. I order a Sapporo, sit back and reflect on my recent success.

I arrive at the first-class counter and am greeted by the appropriately cheerful, Yumi Shindo, my airline assigned assistant. She whisks me past security, escorts me to the first-class lounge and shakes me a classic martini. Exhausted after such a difficult morning, Yumi asks if I might like a sucky-sucky. I sit back and imagine last night’s Japanese boy toy, Shinichi. Perhaps I was wrong to have Tanaka snap his neck and dispose of his remains in the hotel furnace.

Near regret gives way to a boarding call. Yumi adjusts her ascot and leads me to the Boeing Triple Seven. Recent economic collapse means I have the first-class cabin to myself. I order a preflight vodka soda and adjust my seat. Why American or European carriers aren’t as clever as their Asian rivals I’ll never know. I do know, however, that my vodka soda has arrived a gin and tonic. Before I can complain, the sound of a sword hitting the cabin door as Yumi’s entrails splash across the cabin floor. Tanaka reappears, vodka soda in hand. This is Japanese efficiency at its best.

The London-bound jumbo jet is halfway to Heathrow when I awake, the stench of Yumi replaced by freshly cut lilac and cherry blossom. I readjust my massive manhood and order a club sandwich.

In five years, I can see her shaving her head publicly ala Britney Spears. Hell, Miley might go one better and shave something else publicly. In seven years, after her recovery, the sex tape emerges. By now, Miley is a flabby has-been looking for a comeback. A misstep marriage will follow additional stints in rehab. Then she’ll emerge from hiding, her face pulled tightly over her scalp, a top-40 single on the charts (#39). She’ll be down for the count, but the public will play along. “Isn’t she great? What a champ!”

I love watching Master Chef Goes Large on BBC Lifestyle. It’s one of those things I didn’t know I was missing until my partner and I moved to Hong Kong. In Tokyo, we were grateful for the handful of English-language channels we got, all of them American (except for BBC News of course).

Here in Honkers, we get BBC Lifestyle, a channel loaded with the sneers, swipes and snickering you just can’t find on American television. We Americans tend to growl, threaten and laugh outright. But we also pussyfoot around thorny issues, downplay bad news and have that “Everyone’s a winner!!” attitude towards grading.

“You’re grandma went to sleep, Baby. No, I think she’s very tired and wants to sleep for a very long time. How long? Forever. Yes, grandma needs her rest, Baby. Now go fetch Mommy her special orange juice.”

“Wow! Two artificial legs!! The last kid I saw in here only got one. But YOU! You’re special, Johnny. You’ll get to play little league with two bionic legs. Why, you’ll be the fastest boy on the field!”

You won’t find any pussyfooting on Master Chef Goes Large. Unlike Top Chef, the judges (John Torode and Greg Wallace) don’t mingle with the would-be chefs. They’re not out to make friends, address grievances or placate divas. The focus is on the food. If it’s good, you’ll move on. If it’s not, there’s the door, and please let it hit you on the ass on your way out.

While John and Greg never address the camera, you do get a narrator in the form of a cut-throat, to-the-point voice over courtesy of one India Fisher. I imagine this woman in a black leather number complete with sheer black hose, red lipstick and painfully high stilettos. You never see her on camera, but I imagine she’s fierce.

India: Jessica is a spinster from South London with a flair for phyllo and an affection for cheese. But will her couscous with quail eggs and red wine reduction be enough to send her to the next round?

John: (tasting the couscous) I’m afraid what you have there is an awful mess. Just an awful mess. I can’t imagine what possessed you to put these ingredients together in the same kitchen, let alone the same dish.

John: Well, let me have a bite. (tasting) Right, that’s exactly how not to make black pudding.

Greg: But your turnip crisps are nicely seasoned and are full of a deep rich saffron flavor. I do believe I like them, Michael. Yes, I do believe I do.

God I love Master Chef. And beginning at 7:35pm local time, you can find me glued to the tube, glass of wine in hand, that night’s dinner ingredients splayed out on the kitchen counter. My partner enters and asks what’s for dinner. “Shhh.” I say. “It’s Master Chef.”

Bored? Plagued by random thoughts? Whip out the hand restraints and face cloth!

You just knew that once Christopher Hitchens tried out waterboarding for Vanity Fair, the whole thing would catch on like wild fire. Those pics were priceless by the way.

Pretty soon you’ll have the inevitable heart attack, death or partial paralysis that comes from recreational waterboarding. Crazy kids! The effected family will go on Oprah. Barbara Walters will halt an argument between Joy and Elisabitch to announce in her high-pitched, sing-song voice, “Did you hear about the little boy who is now clinging to his life in St. Louis after waterboarding with his friends?”

“Mmmm!” says Whoopi shaking her head.

I say we should just waterboard controversial people simultaneously and publicly during the evening news. That’ll get those ratings up in a jiffy. First, Nancy Pelosi and Rush Limbaugh! Who can last? Who’ll come out the better person? With more street cred?

Living in the heart of Hong Kong is like living in a big western city expect with fewer white or black people. Sure, the signs are in Chinese, but they’re also in English. The buildings might be taller and the city more densely populated, but Hong Kong reminds me of New York in many ways–a New York with British English, a busy harbor and people who shove you out of the way not to be confrontational, but because you are, in fact, in their way.

I welcome this change after prissy, preening Tokyo with its abundance of rules, regulations and suicides. Hell, I’d contemplate suicide too if I had to put up with all that pressure. Who wouldn’t?

Hong Kong is all about rules when it comes to one thing: communicable disease. After SARS, the city government doesn’t mess around when it comes to sickness. In the current environment, you so much as sneeze and you might have a cop hosing you down. Of course, we all thought we were fairly immune from Swine Flu. I mean, it’s all the way over there in Mexico, and China is pretty strict about most things, including visiting foreigners.

We were passing the Metropark Hotel on Saturday morning when we noticed the crowds and television cameras. My partner assumed they were just filming a movie so we crossed the street to avoid any unnecessary hassle. But as we passed the hotel from across the busy road, we noticed many policemen, a couple of ambulances and hordes of curious onlookers.

“Must be a murder suicide.” I said.

I love messing with my partner. He is so easily spooked.

“Oh, I’m wrong. It was a jumper. I just saw the clothe draped over the body.”

My partner pretended not to want to look, but I saw him nervously glancing towards the front of the hotel.

When we passed the 7-11 (yes, there are 7-11s in Hong Kong) to pick up the FT, we saw the headline of the local paper. The Swine Flu had not only managed to make it to Hong Kong, it managed to land a few blocks from our apartment building. Yikes!

Suddenly my year-round tan and passionate nature were a liability. What if the local authorities rounded up all Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, put us in some urine-drenched cell and threw away the key? It could happen.

Later, I saw the pictures and video of all the guests hanging out their windows, waving at the cameras. When I went by the hotel again today, I had my mobile camera ready in case some German woman with cabin fever started spitting at passersby. Unfortunately, the police had blocked the perimeter of the hotel from access and the only person I saw in the hotel was some white guy talking on his cell phone. On the line with Kristie Lu Stout, no doubt.

The BBC has that sophisticated Sudanese sex kitten, Zeinab Badawi. A woman that both gay and straight men find equally appealing, but for entirely different reasons.

Even the Asians are kicking ass on CNBC, CNN and CNN International. Think Martin Soong, Atika Schubert and that feisty fashionista Alina Cho.

But as a Latino, I’m sad to see that the only news we get to report is the weather. And don’t give me that “What about Ed Lavandera?” crap. He’s one taco away from a heart attack. I’m sure the producers at CNN are already making that montage for when his belly finally explodes.

A weepy, bony Kiran Chetry speaking over video of Ed when he was in the pink: Ed Lavandera, you will be missed. When we come back, find out who’s tops at the box office! But before that, a check of the weather!

And out pops the Latino.

Mari Ramos with that manteca mouth of hers. Frijoles practically drip from her lips while che reports on da weather. “Aye, Dios Mios. Es going to thrain in Nicaragua. Mommi, bring in da cheekins, or jew won’t have paella when I come to visit jew en June.”

Lola Martinez, that Spanish dominatrix in her skin-tight, leather, lick-my-boot outfits, reads the weather with a snarl that leaves a whimpering Max Foster with an erection under his desk. At least she’s the antidote to that ray of plastic sunshine Jenny Harrison.

Then we have that phlegmy Guillermo Arduino from Argentina. There could be flash-floods in the Philippines or bush fires in Australia, but all this guy would want to talk about is the sunshine in Barcelona or the mudslides in Caracas. Anywhere that will allow him to speak Spanish in that over-articulated way of his. “Today, in ChiLE, sunchine. But dats not de case in Buenos AirES. The Rio Plata weell be aswollen over its banks so watch out.”

When I was a kid, my dad would talk the talk of a conservative. Small government. Personal liberty. Low taxes. Fiscal responsibility. And as a kid, I agreed. It was only on road trips to visit relatives that my mom would discuss her political views and challenge my dad’s way of thinking. He didn’t like this, and would shout, talk with his hands and get all Mexican until my mom would order him to calm down and keep his eyes on the road.

I would sit quietly in the back seat listening to The Carpenters or Leo Sayer or whoever else was on the radio and think, “Mom is right.”

Mom always wanted the government out of her life. She wants the freedom to make choices without anyone interfering. She hates paying taxes and even now will challenge the tax increases the city of San Antonio places on her house. She still physically balances her checkbook in pen and in an actual check book. She always tells me to save, save, save. And taught me to always look for a sale and at the best stores possible.

My dad is all for the integration of church and state. He opposes abortion personally and would like to make his opposition law for all people who, unlike him, actually have a uterus. He opposes gay marriage. (Dad, you know your son is gay and lives in Hong Kong with his partner, right? We all had margaritas on the river at Zuni Grill. Remember?). He was for the “War on Terror” because it was the right(wing) thing to do.

He kept his mouth shut when W was slashing taxes for the wealthy and running up huge debts. He never accompanies my mom to fight for lower taxes on their home. And recently, when my mom joined him while he was working on some project in Guatemala, it was she, not he, who had the cojones to complain that the shower was spewing scalding hot, then freezing cold water and that they needed another room.

“Why complain! Why do you have to complain!?” he screamed at my mom.

They got a better room and he will stay at a hotel that is not being renovated the next time he’s down there.

But he sits there watching FOX in the hotel. He cheered when Rush Limbaugh said he wanted Obama to fail. He laughed at the racist jokes his Republican “friends” would forward to him via email before the election. He listens to Limbaugh every weekday morning and watches FOX at full blast (he has a hearing problem but would probably listen full blast anyway) every day. My mom and I have to watch The View on low volume and then must change the channel when he enters the room.

He cannot stand to listen to Obama speak. He hates Hillary Clinton with a passion that scares me (and even I don’t care for her). He rants. He screams. He makes it difficult for my mom to maintain old friendships with family friends. He makes scenes at restaurants. He sits on the sofa biting his nails and then editorializing during the commercials.

He knows not to push me too hard because he’s seen me become the scary spic diva from hell (apple doesn’t fall far from the tree I guess). He says that all liberals are angry and sad but I disagree. Everyone I know who is left of center is hopeful and mostly happy–even when Bush was in power. We drink, talk, debate, discuss and disagree and then do it all over again. My dad the Dittohead? He sits on the sofa and screams at the TV. He has few friends.

Who doesn’t want lower taxes, fiscal discipline and personal liberty? Hell, sign me up. In theory, I have almost always agreed with my dad. In theory. In practice, the Republican Party as it is now, is not conservative. It is not a party for all. It is a party for the well fed. It is a party for those that think alike and look alike. It is a party that excludes. A party that dictates. A party that indoctrinates. A party that my brown, short, dark-skinned son of an illegal Mexican immigrant dad will never be invited to.